"Greg Egan - Oceanic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Egan Greg)

"It's different. But it's just as good. You'll find out for yourself, soon enough."
"I hadn't been thinking that far ahead," I confessed.
Lena giggled. "You've got a whole new life in front of you, Martin. You don't know what
you've been missing."
She kissed me, then started pulling away. I cried out in pain, and she stopped. "I'm sorry.
I'll take it slowly." I reached down to touch the place where we were joined; there was a trickle
of blood escaping from the base of my penis.
Lena said, "You're not going to faint on me, are you?"
"Don't be stupid." I did feel queasy, though. "What if I'm not ready? What if I can't do it?"
"Then I'll lose my hold in a few hundred tau. The Angels weren't completely stupid."
I ignored this blasphemy, though it wasn't just any Angel who'd designed our bodies -- it was
Beatrice Herself. I said, "Just promise you won't use a knife."
"That's not funny. That really happens to people."




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"I know." I kissed her shoulder. "I think --"
Lena straightened her legs slightly, and I felt the core break free inside me. Blood flowed
warmly from my groin, but the pain had changed from a threat of damage to mere tenderness; my
nervous system no longer spanned the lesion. I asked Lena, "Do you feel it? Is it part of you?"
"Not yet. It takes a while for the connections to form." She ran her fingers over my lips.
"Can I stay inside you, until they have?"
I nodded happily. I hardly cared about the sensations anymore; it was just contemplating the
miracle of being able to give a part of my body to Lena that was wonderful. I'd studied the
physiological details long ago, everything from the exchange of nutrients to the organ's
independent immune system -- and I knew that Beatrice had used many of the same techniques for the
bridge as She'd used with gestating embryos -- but to witness Her ingenuity so dramatically at
work in my own flesh was both shocking and intensely moving. Only giving birth could bring me
closer to Her than this.
When we finally separated, though, I wasn't entirely prepared for the sight of what emerged.
"Oh, that is disgusting!"
Lena shook her head, laughing. "New ones always look a bit ... encrusted. Most of that stuff
will wash away, and the rest will fall off in a few kilotau."
I bunched up the sheet to find a clean spot, then dabbed at my -- her -- penis. My newly
formed vagina had stopped bleeding, but it was finally dawning on me just how much mess we'd made.
"I'm going to have to wash this before my parents get back. I can put it out to dry in the
morning, after they're gone, but if I don't wash it now they'll smell it."
We cleaned ourselves enough to put on shorts, then Lena helped me carry the sheet up onto the
deck and drape it in the water from the laundry hooks. The fibers in the sheet would use nutrients
in the water to power the self-cleaning process.
The docks appeared deserted; most of the boats nearby belonged to people who'd come for the
wedding. I'd told my parents I was too tired to stay on at the celebrations; tonight they'd
continue until dawn, though Daniel and Agnes would probably leave by midnight. To do what Lena and
I had just done.
"Martin? Are you shivering?"
There was nothing to be gained by putting it off. Before whatever courage I had could desert